Big Fish is, I suppose, meant to recall the tall tales of Pecos Bill, Paul Bunyan, and the like, but its modern-day setting creates a bit of cognitive dissonance. It’s straining too hard for magical realism without creating a particularly enticing magic or a particularly interesting reality. I kept waiting for the dash of dark humor that would mark it as a Tim Burton film, but it never came. I always think of Burton as the Edward Gorey of cinema; well, Big Fish is like Edward Gorey drawing wide-eyed puppies for Hallmark cards.
Perhaps I’m too much like Will (Billy Crudup), the sullen son of raconteur and Alabama traveler Edward Bloom (Albert Finney), who rebels against his father’s incessant (and repetitive) story-telling by becoming a reporter (get it? He’s interested in facts – well, unless he’s Stephen Glass) and not speaking to the old man until Dad is on his deathbed. Then Will comes home to reconcile, and Finney narrates in a dreadful Southern accent (actually, everyone sports a Southern accent, and they’re all dreadful) a bunch of insipid, rambling yarns with Ewan McGregor as the young Edward, befriending giants and, like Elvis in Roustabout, joining a carnival to meet a girl, and by the end of the movie – golly, please don’t get mad at me for giving away the big plot twist! – Edward has learned that a little truth now and then can be a good thing, and Will has removed the stick from his ass and discovered the joys of fantasy.
I’m not sure who the movie’s target audience is: it’s too simplistic and dull for adults, but rare is the kids’ movie that includes a nod to Deliverance (the banjo player picking the “Dueling Banjos” intro is, in fact, the same guy from Deliverance) and Danny DeVito’s naked ass (the shot starts with a rear view of his unclothed calves, and as it slowly pans up, you’re thinking, “No, they couldn’t… No! Please!” But they did). You can almost see how the stories Edward tells could be magical and transporting – if you cared at all about anyone in them.
Not that there aren’t a few amusing, distinctive touches – the Korean Siamese-twin chanteuses, Helena Bonham Carter’s witch, a couple of visually arresting shots. But little else marks this as a Burton film. In fact, the movie oddly includes an intrusive montage of pop songs, even though Burton said in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, “I’m always against a song in a movie. You don’t want lyrics. It takes you out of one world and puts you in another.”
Weirdly, the audience laughed whenever an actor they recognized appeared on screen, no matter what he was doing. It’s Steve Buscemi! Ha ha ha ha! Okay, that I can see, because he is a little goofy-looking. But Danny DeVito? Albert Finney? Jessica Lange? And yet, utter silence greeted Robert Guillaume. Sic transit gloria Benson!
Big Fish is generally just pointless
and
lifeless rather than excessively sentimental – until the mawkish,
predictable
ending that had me mentally rolling my eyes. Even in my present
sensitive,
susceptible state, I demand a certain skill from a story before my
tears
will be jerked. But then again, the women on either side of me
were
weeping, so what do I know?
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